5-24-11 2nd Service Day

Today was a fun day. We got to go to the “Father’s House” which is where new single moms go who need help/assistance. I think there were 8 moms there with their infants. We set up our assessment station once more, assessing both the mother and their child. I was assessing the teeth today. I was sad to see that many of the infants had signs of tooth decay. One baby only had two teeth in and they were already starting to rot away.

Our education session here was very important. We taught them about oral hygiene for themselves and their infants. We taught them about bottle rot; how baby teeth can start to show signs of tooth decay if you leave the bottle in the crib with the baby.

When we were teaching about nutrition, we were happy to hear that the mothers were breastfeeding their infants through the first year. We had the mothers put together the bracelets for the nutrition lesson, reminding them to be careful that the babies don’t get a hold of the beads (I was a bit leery about doing the bead exercise when there were new babies around). We played with the babies and toddlers… and the mothers watched a wonderful movie that shows how four different babies from different cultures were brought up. It was a fascinating movie, and the mothers seemed to enjoy it a lot.

After our fantastic lunch break we came back and the French professor, who was in my group, taught them yoga. After more games and finishing up the movie we had to say goodbye once more. We had supper at a nice restaurant and I quickly drifted off to sleep.